2018-12-31 22:59:47

Hi everyone,

I'm the creator of Nano Empire and Friends of the Prince, and it's time to announce my third game!

A Few Minutes of Glory is a fast, text-based real-time strategy game meant to capture the essence of Age of Empires 2. It emphasizes strategy over tactics: you choose what resources to gather and what units to build, and battles are handled automatically. Create a custom civilization and see how long it lasts...

As always, I want it to be fully accessible with VoiceOver.

See the full details on the App Store, where it's available for pre-order at a discount: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/a-few-m … 1&mt=8

I'm also looking for beta testers. Please send an email to [email protected] if you're interested.

Thanks!

Developer of Nano Empire, A Few Minutes of Glory, Evelyn's Farm, Guess the Rule, and Pocket Reality.
jksgames.wordpress.com

2019-01-01 00:04:57 (edited by defender 2019-01-01 00:06:11)

Awesome, sounds like a great little time killer.
And thank you so much for taking the time to make it accessible!

2019-01-01 00:16:22

no android version?

2019-01-01 01:59:59

Sounds awesome! It's so huge pity that i'm under 18 and i don't have a credit card to buy the thing... And my parents don't like the idea of buying games at all... sad

2019-01-01 16:21:31

Android

Bitcoin Address:
1MeNca7h6m8du4TV3psN4m4X666p6Y36u5m

2019-01-01 16:43:25

wow this sounds amazing! I've enjoyed both previous titles myself and really look forward to playing it.

I have a rotten cold at the second so probably wouldn't be much use beta testing wise, but I'll definitely be up for playing the game as soon as it comes out, and if my cold abaits soon enough I wouldn't mind testing either.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-01-01 22:56:32 (edited by defender 2019-01-01 22:57:07)

You know I probably shouldn't say this but, YOLO! or what ever.
This game's title totally sounds like a sexual innuendo.
Which makes me just want to play it more, actually...

2019-01-02 09:37:15

Hi.
I don't have the time to betatest at the moment, but I have preordred the game, looking very much forward to check this out.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2019-01-02 23:07:17

any idea of a release date?

2019-01-02 23:54:23 (edited by Dark 2019-01-02 23:55:24)

Preordered as well, this one sounds awesome, even if I don't get to beta test.

According to the ap store it should be released on the 4th of February.

I'll admit I love the idea of a single player text based strategy game, I am so sick of those "who can minimax most or pay the most cash" type of mmorgs with rounds that run on for weeks and weeks.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-01-03 03:10:11

Preordered.  I was a big fan of nano; never tried the other but my wife says it was far too confusing.  Regardless, this should be good.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2019-01-03 12:52:52

Wow. I will be buying this.

2019-01-03 18:52:32

To those who are wondering about n Android version, its most likely the normal answer tha devs will give:

"The blind Android community isn't viable enough, too hard to program."

In edition to the above, do to how Google's framework works in most cases, you have to turn off Talkback/voice Assistant, unless the programmer took the time to code the app from scratch, vs a port.

Thus, who knows!

2019-01-03 22:28:17

Hello JSenter!
I Pre-ordered right now. I'd be honored to beta test, I love nano empire, didn't know about FOTP until today but I'm very excited to try it out. I have a question. Are you developing games by yourself or with a team? If you are in fact working by yourself, how do you offset the expenses of being an apple developer? If you don't mind my asking.
I'm curious because I love iOs gaming and would like to develop for apple devices, but I don't have the money to pay just to be a developer and publish on the appstore. I figure I would have to make games and sell them at a very high price just to be able to break even.
I'm so excited to try this new game!

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2019-01-28 23:13:55

Thank you for all of your help beta testing!

The release date is one week from today. Last chance to get the pre-order discount...

@Guitarman I am a solo developer, and sadly it's just a hobby at the moment which I never expect to be profitable. I have, however, been able to sell enough copies of Nano Empire to cover my development costs, mostly by posting on Reddit, TouchArcade, and here. So I'd encourage you to try making your own games, but only if you enjoy the process.

Developer of Nano Empire, A Few Minutes of Glory, Evelyn's Farm, Guess the Rule, and Pocket Reality.
jksgames.wordpress.com

2019-01-29 09:11:58

Having preordered already, I look very much forward to play this. Keep up the great job.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2019-01-29 16:12:00

I am in the same position as Slj, I preordered back at the start of the month and am really looking forward to playing the finished game.

I possibly would've beta tested as well, accept that I had a rotten cold at the start of the year big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-02-04 12:05:38

Hi.
The game has been released. I have given it a short try, and here are my thoughts:
Accessibility: When you choose new campaign and before you click start, Voiceover jumps randomly, making it difficult and quite annoying to navigate the screen.
The gameplay:
I like upgrading and fighting. The game seems quite cool and addicting.
However, the thing which turns me away from the game very quickly is the time limits. 3 minutes to upgrade your stuff, get your men and defence, and even fight the enemy to get enough glory points to hopefully win the final battle.
I don't like the time based concept, like build and fight as fast as possible. If you don't do that, you are getting attacked.
So in short: Nice concept, but because of that, the game is not for me. However, I'm glad I preordered to support the development of a new game which is accessible for blind and visual impaired people.

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soerenjensen

2019-02-04 14:16:51

I also preordered and I'll test it after work for sure. I wish this game could be with full audio but well, We'll see how it works.

Twitter
Add me on Steam
Discord: lirintheblindguy
BattleTAG: Lirin#21759

2019-02-04 14:59:03 (edited by Dark 2019-02-04 14:59:35)

I was amusingly having a sleepless night last night and was using my Iphone when I got the alert that the game had been released, so spent a couple of hours playing.

Firstly, I really like the concept, while the timing took a while to get used to, especially when I was learning the screen (for example I didn't realise at first that there were two buttons for each unit type, attack and defence), I eventually got the idea and then found the game very addictive.

It took me a bit of getting used to the layout but I was able to beat the easy AI without too much difficulty, ten straight wins, though admittedly I probably had good luck in what units I had.

To those having trouble, a couple of things to bare in mind, firstly, time only ticks when your on the build screen, you can take as much time looking over battle results as you want, also note that a lot of things you flick past have information beside them, for example the name and cost of each unit or building.

I do agree with Slj that the campaign screen (the one you get where you select powers), was problematic, since while you can hit the info buttons for the descriptions of your units its not clear what button goes where or how to get a breakdown of your powers.
It'd also be nice from an access perspective to  have the messages that appear at the bottom of the screen read automatically, or to be able  pause the timer while you read them, I actually missed the tutorial since I didn't realize that the messages were way down at the bottom.

I will say the difficulty is steep. I slaughtered the easy Ai even before I knew what I was doing, but I have only been able to  win one match against normal thus far.
Part of this is getting used to the strengths and weaknesses of what units you have and how different resources interact,though I do wish there was an ai gradiant between easy and normal, since it seems the jump there is pretty huge. This is also where not being able to efficiently examine your units descriptions is a miner pest, indeed while I gather that the point is to try and take advantage of the enemy's weaknesses, I haven't yet got which unit is which type or which type of unit is stron/weak against which type, though of course part of this will come with familiarity with the game.

I also am a little sorry there isn't more flavour text in the game, for example the names of the attacking enemy civilizations, since while I get that enemies are created at random, having a name or two would make the game feel a bit more like a battle and a bit less like a weighted set of dice rolls even if that is what it is.
Similarly, some more atmospheric combat logs might be nice.

All in all though, definitely a nice idea for a game, and I'll look forward to getting more familiar with all the different unit types and how best to use them.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-02-04 21:58:19

The game now also has an Applevis entry, see https://www.applevis.com/apps/ios/games … utes-glory

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-02-05 00:04:16

Thank you for your thoughts!

I can see how the time pressure might not be pleasant especially as you are learning the game. Would anyone like an "extra slow" mode?

Developer of Nano Empire, A Few Minutes of Glory, Evelyn's Farm, Guess the Rule, and Pocket Reality.
jksgames.wordpress.com

2019-02-05 01:26:38

Yes please, both from the perspective of learning the game and playing tactically.
Though I've now done two complete runs against the easy Ai, I still haven't got into the deeper strategy of the game, EG trying to consider which units are weak/strong against which enemies, or consider the production costs at a more minute level.

I even have had cases where I am swiping through the screen trying to find the attack button then get attacked first big_smile.
this hasn't been a problem on easy since I've always tried to focus on defence as much as attack, but it would be an issue on higher difficulties I think.

Also, a slower mode would let me actually read the status messages at the bottom of the screen. I tend to miss them thus far since I'm usually always trying  to flick through and spend my time building as much as possible.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2019-02-05 03:49:50

What confuses me is the two numbers next to the archer.

let's say you're swiping along, you come to archer, then you have a button that says one, followed by another button that might say one, or maybe it might be two.

It's the same for knights, I'm not sure of the other units.

I'm assuming it's to have more of that unit, but why have two different buttons? or maybe the label needs to be different?

I like the game for the most part, but I also like to take my time building up my defenses.

2019-02-05 05:13:23

Most units accept for structures have two number buttons after the name, the first one is to build a unit for attack, the second is to build a unit for defence.

So if you saw "archer" 1 2 it would mean you had one archer on attack, and two on defence.
If you don't have enough resources to build the unit, the button will say "dimmed" beside it.

With defence, you can pretty much just go crazy in building walls and towers, since stone isn't used to make anything else, but you will need more than walls and towers if the enemy sends a large force against you.

I haven't yet got a %100 strategy, but generally I try to be roughly equal on attack and defence if I can, with perhaps a slight bias to attack if I want to get an early raid in.

Hth.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)